Firing federal employees to get easier under White House proposal : NPR
President Trump deploys changes that would facilitate the dismissal of federal employees who currently have significant employment protections.
Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images
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Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images
In April, the lawyer for the Veteran Ministry of Justice, Erez Reveni, was in court, representing the government in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man that the government has wrongly expelled in Salvador.
The judge dotted Rebeni questions: How was Abrego Garcia? What authority should the police agents prevail by his car?
“So, your honor, my answer to many of these questions will be frustrating,” replied Rebeni. “I am also frustrated not to have any answers for you on many of these questions.”
Could the judge followed another question: why could the United States not recover Abrego Garcia?
“Your honor, I would say, for the conscience of the court, that when this case landed on my desk, the first thing I did was to ask my clients this question,” replied Rebeni. “I have not received, to date, an answer that I find satisfactory.”
Reundi was put on leave the next day and later shot this month. He called on his dismissal.
From now on, the criticisms of President Trump say that the case of Rebeni illustrates what will happen if the Trump administration prevails in its efforts to reshape the public service.
Change long -standing standards around the public service
Five months after his second term, Trump changes long -standing standards around hiring and dismissal of federal employees while he seeks to assert much more control over the people responsible for carrying out his program.
A key element of this youthful cure is the rule proposed by the personnel management office “improving performance, responsibility and responsiveness in the public service”. This would allow the administration to move tens of thousands of civil servants in a new category of employees that would be used for the pleasure of the president.
The administration indicates that this is part of the meeting, the bureaucracy more efficient and more responsible.
The president’s criticisms say that Trump politicizes the public service and that they warn the consequences for the American people.
An emphasis on jobs of “influence of politicians”
As a civil servant, Rebeni has experienced solid job protections, including the right to regular procedure. Federal law obliges the government to follow a certain number of measures before taking disciplinary measures, in particular the forecast of employees and the possibility of responding.
But the Trump administration seems to have circumvented these steps in the case of Rebeni, dismissing him less than two weeks after his appearance in court. The Ministry of Justice refused to comment on its case.
From now on, under the rule proposed by the administration, federal employees in jobs considered to be “the influence of policies” could lose these protections all together.
“He would have had no reason given to simply dismiss people,” said Stacey Young, who worked at the Ministry of Justice for 18 years before resigning at the end of January.
Young says that if federal employees can be removed according to political whims, the American people will suffer. No more protections that allow “brilliant and qualified people” to spend their entire career to help the American public, she says.
Concern for the numbers of the crunchy government
Even in the corners of the government which appear the most far from the policy, there are concerns concerning the changes made by Trump to the public service.
Erica Groshen, who was commissioner of the Obama Labor Statistics Office, affectionately calls economists, statisticians and others who follow employment, inflation, wages and other economic indicators “the best data of data”.
Even if they spend their days to crunch figures, she is worried that they could also be among those transformed into at will.
It cannot understand what the administration means when it indicates that it plans to reclassify people in positions “of influence of policies”.
“It is not specific. Many of these words are open to interpretation,” explains Groshen. “Does BLS influence politics? Yes, it’s supposed.”
The federal reserve uses its data when choosing to increase or reduce interest rates. The social security services of retirees are adjusted according to the consumer price index. An error of a tenth of a percentage point could lead to overpaye or underpaids of $ 1 billion, says Groshen.
Apart from the government, companies write long-term contracts linked to government inflation data and decide where to set up production facilities according to wages and the availability of labor.
According to Groshen, Groshen is a shared confidence that people who collect, process and report the data do it without political interference. Even the perception that government data could be manipulated by politics could change this.
“The reliability of the information would be lost,” explains Groshen, with enormous implications for an economy that needs reliable data to stay on the right track.
Neither BLS nor the personnel management office answered NPR questions as to whether BLS or other statistical agencies could be among the people reclassified under the rule once it is finalized.
An emphasis on the realization of the president’s agenda
Trump established this category of employees at the end of his first mandate, appealing him to Annex F. After President Biden has taken the effort, Trump brought him back to his first day, reversing the policy / career of the computer calendar.
“He is intended to ensure that the administration, the president, has people who work for him who will actually make the policies on which he has run, that he articulates,” said the director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought during his confirmation hearing in January. “We believe that this is an important fundamental principle, and that does not mean that we intend to use it to dismiss career officials.”
But facilitating the dismissal of people is actually a declared objective.
The administration explains in the proposed rule according to which the creation of the calendar policy / career will allow agencies “to quickly withdraw employees from the critical posts who engage in bad conduct, to misunderstand or to undermine the democratic process by intentionally reversing the presidential directives”.
Where it gets complicated is that the actions taken by an employee could appear different from different people, explains Don Kettl, former dean of the public policy of the University of Maryland, who opposes change.
“Things that can turn to a supervisor like someone who walks slow or sabotage can actually be the legitimate effort of an employee to follow … Other standards of responsibility”, explains KetTL, such as laws and regulations, constitution and professional ethics.
Fearing “a level of sycophance” not seen since the 19th century
Under the proposed rule, agencies must establish lists of positions that may be transferred to the calendar policy / career. Trump himself will make the last call. The administration estimates that some 50,000 federal employees could be reclassified.
Stacey Young worked at the Ministry of Justice for 18 years before resigning in January. She is the founder and executive director of Justice Connection, a group focused on employees of the Ministry of Justice to take challenges in Trump’s second term.
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Judicial connection
Young, the former government prosecutor, expects the Ministry of Justice to be affected more significantly than other agencies. She warns that transforming lawyers into unlimited employees would completely change the nature of the department.
“It would require a level of sycophance that we have not seen since the 19th century,” she said.
Already, says Young, she hears every day that people are said to do things that are not professional, contrary to ethics, even illegal or who said to resign. She says that the case of Rebeni reveals what can happen if they refuse.
“He was dismissed shortly after being lifted in court and said the truth,” said Young.
In response to the NPR questions, the spokesman for the Ministry of Justice, Chad Gilmartin, wrote: “MJ lawyers should maintain all legal and ethical duties, including the zealous defense of our country’s interests, the application of civil and criminal laws and the vigorous defense of policies and presidential measures against legal challenges.”
Hiring only “patriotic Americans”
The Trump administration also reorganizes the way she hires people, issuing a new job plan which, according to him, will bring to the workforce “only the most talented, most capable and the most patriotic Americans”.
The plan orders agencies to stop using demographic statistics in hiring and to focus attention on the merit, competence and enthusiasm of candidates for Trump’s policies.
“How would you help advance the president’s decrees and political priorities in this role?” Ask a new trial question to which most candidates will have to answer. “Identify one or two relevant executive decrees or political initiatives that are important to you and explain how you could help them implement them if they are hired.”
Kettl does not think that asking such a question is logical for the roles of the apolitical government.
“You are not hiring people now to administer an executive decree of a particular president. You should hire people now with the ability to effectively manage government programs during the next decade, two or more decades,” said Kettl. “This is the expertise we need, not loyalty to a particular administration.”
